The Marksman Public House

Every time I’m watching TV and Arsenal has had a goal scored against it or a poor result, I’ve opened the ticketing app to see if the setback has had an impact on people selling their tickets on the ticketing exchange. It never has. This has given me a picture of resilience among the fans. Their tickets, by and large, have been precious and their belief in the team has been firm. True, at least, if ticket retention can be understood as a leading indicator.

That said, fans have been more vocally upset about how Arsenal has been doing. Which is to say, basically not really challenging Liverpool for the title. Arsenal sits in 3rd place with a game in hand on the second place team. Hardly a terrible season but after narrowly missing out on the Premier League title last year and a little less narrowly the year before that, and Man City falling apart spectacularly, yeah, you feel like why can’t this be our year? It can’t because Liverpool is much revived after losing its beloved manager Jurgen Klopp for a new guy, Arne Slot, and striker Mo Salah having an amazing year. As well positioned as Arsenal are in the results table, Arsenal’s point total is technically as close to 8th place as it is to 1st. Every rare time Liverpool falters, so too does Arsenal.

Now there are plenty of extenuating circumstances. Most importantly, there has been one important injury after another. Although Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has shown he will happily rely on a team sheet that is working for him match after match, he has had significantly more limited options for much of this season that preclude putting his best/favorite team on the field. I’ve rarely been disappointed by the lineup he puts up but there is a lot shifting around. And the results are not ideal.

My husband and I realized there were three home matches within one week this week, so we endeavored to get tickets for one of them so we could justify going to London and try to get the others. We had failed to put in a ballot for the Manchester United FA cup match and our ballots were rejected for the Tottenham and Aston Villa matches. We had a reasonably easy time getting tickets on the ticket exchange for the Aston Villa match (club seats, so not ideal, but at least in the stadium). We bought plane tickets and organized a hotel. We had no further luck in getting tickets for the other matches before Friday, when we would leave Chicago.

I guess you could say our luck got worse on Friday because my husband slipped on ice on his morning walk and was concussed. He showed up at my bedside in the morning with a head wound and his hands experiencing burning pain. We drove through a snow storm to the emergency room where he had a CT scan, two staples, and got prescriptions for pain relief and muscle relaxants. The doctor said it was technically ok to go to London, but given the pain he was in, we decided not to. We got home and I started working. We hadn’t cancelled anything because it was already too late for some of the arrangements and didn’t matter when we cancelled some of the others.

Late in the afternoon, I detected some strange activity. “Uh, what are you doing?” I asked my spouse. He said “I’m packing for London.”

OK, then! I had not packed or, really, even showered that day due to the early morning excitement. But I can be flexible, too. So I did those things and we flew to London that night. I knew by the time we were at the airport there’s no way we should have gone to London, but my husband would not hear of turning around.

He’s not seen much of London so far this week, but he’s finally off the muscle relaxants and more alert. He is keenly hoping to have a London Pride before we leave London.

I’ve also not seen much, because I’ve been working. But I do get a lovely walk each morning and to work in a cozy hotel lobby facing a pretty courtyard next to St Olave’s church where supposedly is buried, uh, “Mother Goose” and diarist Samuel Pepys.

That brings us to the first match on Sunday where we were fervently hoping the Arsenal ticket exchange would be opened to people who had not balloted for Manchester United FA Cup tickets. That never happened given high demand from people who had unsuccessfully balloted. Instead I arranged to have roast at The Marksman at noon after which we would supposedly attend the match. The exchange had closed and, while we had a yummy lunch, with regard to tickets for the match, we had nothing.

In any case, Arsenal had a match to contend with. Although I thought Arsenal played great in the first half, we continued to have trouble scoring and the tide changed again in the second half. Manchester United was pretty dire, but they still managed enough action to score first. We scored not too long after that, with nice work from Gabriel. Meanwhile, it seems our injuries just kept piling up. Gabriel Jesus left in a stretcher. Jurien Timber had to be subbed out. Manchester United did a lot of fouling and had a man sent off with a red card. But even so, we could not break them down. And it didn’t look like we would be able to. We had a chance for Martin Odegaard to score a penalty. He has never missed a penalty. But his kick was saved by the keeper that day. The match went into overtime and then into penalties to settle it.

And from there, our keeper David Raya saved none of the penalties and Manchester United missed none of their kicks. Meanwhile, the Manchester United keeper saved one from our Kai Havertz. Very disappointed to already be out of the FA cup competition.

Once we were back to our hotel after watching the match I noticed something I’d never seen before in the age of watching the ticket exchange. Tickets for the Tottenham match were in bigger supply than anything I’ve ever seen before. There have been days I’ve clicked for a ticket probably hundreds of times and not seen a single ticket. On Sunday, I was seeing an available ticket on almost every click. I couldn’t access any of them, but they were there. Keeping in mind this Tottenham match is on a weekday night and therefore a bit less desirable, probably, for many people, this is a match against our biggest rival by far.

The next day, the number of available tickets was even bigger and not just for club seats. My husband and I managed to find and buy non-club seats together. All day Monday and Tuesday the number of seats available was at unprecedented levels. Just this afternoon, a few hours before the match, more than 30 seats were listed and available. It’s true they were mostly club seats and as I previously stated, when sitting at the club level, you just kind of feel like people aren’t quite into it. Still you would expect some interest and excitement in this match.

I know it’s just behavior on a ticket exchange, but this marks the first time in a long time that Arsenal fans seem to have lost hope and belief. I am sad for sure and yes, here we are probably knowing this year is not the year.

I’m leaving for the match soon. I know a lot of things can happen. It’s hard to imagine they will be positive things.

But I do believe in this team. If not today, or this year, some day and some year.

Wish us luck.

A new statue for Arsène Wenger has been placed on the grounds of the Emirates since our last visit. After the match we wandered around trying to find it. You know my love for Arsène Wenger. It’s a bit out of the way and the grounds were so thronged with people, we struggled to find it. A nice steward pointed us in the right direction. Many people were lined up to take a picture with the statue and we waited patiently for our turn. Near the statue there were signs like the one above that surely reflected his philosophy. I recalled an article in which he was quoted in which he stated that he only facilitates “beauty in man.” I fell in love with Arsenal because of the beauty he so valued.

But that was at the end of the day and we should start at the beginning. We had breakfast again over near St. Katherine’s Dock, close to where The Big Half marathon was being run by thousands of people. After breakfast, we walked along the route where people were lined up to start and where some had already started and had doubled back to cross the Tower Bridge at around the 7-meter mark of the race. I am that annoying person who claps for every graduate at a graduation, so I am also the person who claps and whoops for runners who happen to be doing something I will not do. When I am giving (in my mind) motivating words to my kids, my family calls it “happy Mom talk.” When I am cheering at graduations and races, it’s “happy Mom cheering.”

I make no apologies. Except (mentally) to the people sitting near me. Sorry your ears hurt. Now start clapping for the graduates, you lazy, selfish beast.

Afterward, we took the Uber boat over toward the Eye and Big Ben just to enjoy the lovely day. It was shaping up to be a warm one.

In keeping with the theme of trying new things, I considered not having Sunday roast in London on this trip. That seemed over the top, so instead, I booked a different restaurant than I normally do, called The Marksman Public House. I found it by consulting an article. How does the article know? I have no idea. I ruled out some locations that seemed too close to Tottenham Hotspur stadium, although I was pretty sure they were not playing there on Sunday, and then focused on those not too far from the Emirates. The match was at 4:30, a little late to have Roast afterward, so we planned to go for lunch.

The Marksman turned out to be awesome. It had a more casual feel from the incumbent favorite roast place, the Princess of Shoreditch. The decor was light and airy, and people were laughing and relaxed. There were many big groups of people sitting near us, suggesting a popular family/friend gathering place. There was significantly less attention on food presentation. Importantly, there was plenty of attention on the taste of the food. We shared a crispy, perfectly seasoned, juicy whole chicken, a cloud-light Yorkshire pudding, deeply caramelized potatoes, and green beans and carrots with minted, crispy breadcrumbs. Perfect.

We both selected for dessert a thing called a brown butter tart. When it came, I was disappointed. It had sounded so glorious and looked so plain. Big lesson here. With the first bite I understood why no one bothered to make it look good. What would be the point? I’ve never tasted anything as delicious in my life.

We took the bus to the stadium and, because we were newbies to the new check-in procedure, went right in. Like all of the teams, Arsenal appear to be cracking down on the secondary market for ticket sales. In the past we would be sent a pdf of our tickets and would print it out to be scanned; this year, Arsenal require you to download their app and use the wallet feature of your phone for the ticket. A screen shot is not sufficient. As participants in the lottery, we would have been eligible to sell our tickets on Arsenal’s exchange, but we would not be permitted to transfer the ticket to other parties at will.

There is so little chance we will ever part with these precious tickets.

The check-in process went smoothly and we walked up a great many stairs to the novel location of our seats, high, high in the Clock End. I was shocked to realize that from our new seats I was not even able to see our old seats because there is a dip in the roof that conceals parts of the stadium. It had never occurred to me from our old location that most people in the stadium are unable to see all of the seats. We had a fine view of the field and the stadium was rocking when we got there. Literally. The chanting was deafening from the moment we walked through the turnstile until pretty much half time.

At the Clock End, you are very close to the opposition fans, and it became very clear what our role was to be: drown them out, counter their nonsense, and remind them they are guests, very unwelcome ones at that. It seemed the Man United fans were more organized than many who show their faces at the Emirates, but I’ve only once before sat this near the opposition. We had to endure their happiness when Man United scored the first goal, very much counter to play. We rubbed it in their faces when Arsenal scored our first goal about a minute later.

What to say about the match? In the stadium it felt like Arsenal had the upper hand and Manchester United’s only idea was to slow things down as much as possible and break our rhythm, hope for a counterattack. They executed their tedious plan well.

Arsenal had a call for a penalty that was overturned by VAR and Man United had a goal that was ruled offside by VAR. It looked like we were headed for a 1:1 draw well into the very substantial 8 minutes of stoppage time due to Man United’s time wasting and the time spent on VAR reviews.

The noise was more intermittent as the match wore on, but the fans got behind Man United’s substitution that brought Harry Maguire onto the field. Even the Arsenal fans–especially the Arsenal fans–were chanting his name. If you’re struggling to score a goal, there are not too many defenders a team would be more delighted to take a chance against. That is until Man United introduced Jonny Evans as a another substitute defender. I couldn’t believe he was still playing. In his day, he was probably one of the better defenders in the league. He played for Manchester United years ago and more recently played for Leicester City, who was relegated last year. So although nothing much was happening for Arsenal, you had to feel optimistic. And, like the sign said, you had to keep “Believing in Beauty.”

At least 5 minutes into the 8 minutes of added time, our captain Martin Ødegaard hit a hard shot that deflected off of a Man U defender for a corner kick. Saka put it into play and while Jonny Evans got distracted by Gabriel Magalhaes’ antics in front of the goal, the ball bounced off the face of our new boy, Declan Rice. He had a million years to take aim at the bouncing ball and tag it off Jonny Evan’s leg into the goal. The Emirates went insane. When Declan Rice ran to the corner flag to celebrate with the fans the fans in that corner rose in a wave from their seats to join him.

With the subs and celebrations, we had no idea how much time was left and we all stood and sang with great nervousness waiting for the final whistle.

Instead of the whistle, the ball came loose in Arsenal’s half and our sub, Fabio Viera (a far better choice than Jonny Evans or Harry Maguire), put a beautiful through ball exactly where our other sub, Gabriel Jesus, could run onto it, feint to draw the last Manchester United defender into a fruitless slide, and slot it calmly into the corner of the net.

Bedlam. Joy. Unbelievable relief.

And now we are hoping the match never ends.